


Loftverse I: Annex

by DyrneKeeper



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 21:37:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyrneKeeper/pseuds/DyrneKeeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine, in the first days after Kurt leaves for NY, thinks about change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loftverse I: Annex

**Author's Note:**

> Introducing Loftverse! A series of pieces somewhere between drabbles and ficlets in length. I adore the physical and emotional space of Kurt and Rachel’s apartment in New York, both for itself and what it ends up meaning for Kurt and Blaine, and could not resist the temptation to write a bunch of little, atmospheric, purple-prosy pieces to go along with the new set. 
> 
> Titles from thesaurus.com’s first related-word entry for loft, because I’m both original and thematic.

Autumn, Blaine’s mom tells him every year, is the time for change.

He hadn’t gotten it when he was younger. In elementary and then in middle school fall had only meant the end of summer, the end of freedom, and neither of those things were good. But change was supposed to be good - at least that’s what she told him, every year, when he would drag through the last weeks of summer and complained about back-to-school shopping.

“Change is good, sweetheart,” she’d say, and help him pick out notebooks and a new pair of sneakers. “It means you’re growing up.”

But then there was the summer that was tight and hot, where vacation was about healing and coping, not having fun. In the fall there was a new school and a new world to learn how to survive in. Blaine wasn’t sure yet if it was better but it was definitely _different_ , something to get used to day by day until he didn’t even recognize his old life anymore, if he ever did stop to think about it. _Change._ Huh.

He looked in the mirror and saw someone older. Taller. More confident. _Growing up._ It was good.

And then everything…plateaued. The next year, the world faded into autumn around him, sere and brown and everything bland and flat, colorless mornings fading into colorless evenings and everything stayed the same.

But then there was a boy, sunlight in baring branches, the glitter on a freezing pond, and life went (so clichedly, but it _did,_ Kurt transformed _everything_ ) from monochrome to technicolor, his whole world broadened and reduced to _Kurt._ Change, change, _this_ was change. Kurt crushed on him and baffled him and turned his head and nothing could be the same after that, nothing.

Growing up: it really does get better. Change really _is_ good. Blaine revelled in the world changing as the trees slipped from yellow to bronze to brown outside the windows, while Kurt caught his eye across the room and smiled.

Next autumn everything was different, again, and it was all down to Kurt, _again._ Blaine didn’t know how to follow Kurt and then hadn’t known how not to. Everything was slipping around him, quick-spinning leaves in an eddy, change and change and nothing to hold on to except Kurt, and so he held on to Kurt, confused but still feeling, still knowing, so sure after last year: Change. Different. Better. Growing up. Giving in.

(And then, deep into the autumn was _Kurt_ , and change Blaine hadn’t known was possible, auburn hair and wheat-fair skin, oh his _skin_ , and the eddy of change was like a riptide, and they clung so tightly to each other as it dragged them under, together, together, together.)

But now it’s autumn again and Blaine has nothing to hold on to, not even Kurt. And he knows that this is change, that this is growing up, and he knows that, somehow, this has to be _better_ , even if it feels so awful and so wrong. Kurt needs this, even if it hurts that Kurt needs New York more than he needs Blaine. So Blaine smiles and doesn’t grit his teeth when Kurt calls, is happy for him, he _is_. Growing up. Giving in. It’ll get better.

The night is cool, autumn blush on the trees fading to a deeper red as he climbs the stairs to his room. The window is cracked open to let in the air that is crisp and autumn-spicy, air that doesn’t smell like Kurt. The scent of him had faded too quickly as it was, sandalwood and starch fading in days to just his own fabric softener and shampoo.

Kids are playing outside, the twins from down the block racing their bikes in the quiet suburban streets, done with school for the week and digging the last bit of carefree summer out of the year that they can. Blaine pushes the window shut, and feels old.

There’s an email waiting from Kurt, _Pictures of our new apartment!_. They’re not very detailed; Blaine gets only the impression of space, and emptiness, and shabby brick walls. His heart aches a little, loneliness for himself but also for Kurt, no longer safe in his own bed but in some strange new room with barely a lamp and certainly not a mattress for furnishings. But it’s fall, time for moving out and moving on, and Kurt needs to do this, and Blaine needs to let him. So he replies, _looks amazing!_ and takes his phone to bed with him and waits for Kurt to call.

*

 


End file.
